


remember, you made the choice, runaway child, running wild

by carrionkid, psychedelia



Series: a friend of the devil is a friend of mine [5]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - Cults, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Earth-65, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 21:30:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20319808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrionkid/pseuds/carrionkid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychedelia/pseuds/psychedelia
Summary: the year is 1969 and elektra finds that bringing bullseye with her entails far more than she expected.





	1. elektra

**March 1969**

She is most thankful that the brother she is now burdened with caring for seems to be, at least, capable of feeding himself. It is a long process, but he seems too rapt with the act of trying to make himself eat to hold any type of conversation. It would be a lie to say that she is not thankful for the silence.

Her appetite has been most assuredly ruined for the night, though she also makes an attempt at consuming something. It is hunger, she tells herself, that is the cause for the dreamlike lightheadedness. She will not allow herself to entertain any alternatives.

Once she is tired of attempting to eat and equally tired of watching Bullseye, she speaks, “Have you made your decision?”

She is not entirely certain that Bullseye is capable of a choice as simple as this. He is a strange creature, one that often brings…  _ complications  _ wherever he may set foot. She supposes that is part of why she, most foolishly, took him whilst leaving. Wherever he goes, it seems as though portents follow.

That is not some vestige of the laced faith poured down her throat at the compound. It is not some scripture wormed into her brain. There are always signs and the infantile shape on the bed attracts them without a care in the world.

“Guess you’re right,” he says and it sounds as though she is right about his ability to make decisions, “Guess I don’t wanna do it tomorrow.”

“Come, then,” Elektra stands up and manages to cross the small motel room in five strides.

The brother follows at a slower pace, as if he is uncertain where he is stepping. He carries himself on his toes at times and he is most always blanketed by his hair, wide eyes and sharp nose and eternal smile curtained by straw. Part of her, the part that sings to the muses and dances wild in the night, is certain that he is a changeling or something similar. 

He is not a man and he is not a boy. He is fragile and impish and, if Matthew is to be believed in any capacity, dangerous. He is an interesting specimen, standing at the threshold to the motel’s dingy bathroom and wringing his hands.

She allowed herself to allocate a portion of their minute funds towards getting shampoo and conditioner at one of the corner shops near the diner. It is not as nice as the type she would prefer, but it will take care of things most efficiently.

He is still standing there, even after she has placed the bottles on the bathroom counter and started the bath running.

“Is there something you wish to say?”

Bullseye does not look at her, he keeps his eyes cast at the cracked tile floor.

“Then I suggest you stop merely standing around.”

He nods and begins to strip out of his clothing. It strikes her, so quickly that she almost has to laugh, that she has become far more comfortable with the two brothers than she ever expected. She would not have tolerated this situation even a year ago.

Bullseye stands there, naked yet covered by his hair, until she gestures for him to get into the bathtub. He does so with a sense of apprehension, dipping his foot in before deciding that it must be safe to climb all the way into.

Once he is situated within the bathtub, she kneels on the mat in front of it. If there was anyone else around that could possibly see her, this position would feel far more demeaning than it already does. She knew that taking the brother along would complicate the process of leaving and locating Matthew, but she had not entirely anticipated this.

Still, it is too late to change her mind. She takes one of the glasses, complements of the motel in each and every room, and uses it to pour water over his head. Though the water is warm, the boy, for that is truly what he looks like when he is in this state, shivers. She continues in this way until his hair is suitably wet, then does her best to gather the unmanageable tangle of hair together. 

When it does not fall over his shoulders, plastered against his skin, it is easy to see how terribly bony Bullseye is. Were she not there to watch the lives of the brothers for months at length, she would assume that he was not fed enough. That has the potential to become an  _ issue,  _ were anyone else to see him looking so uncared for.

However, that is not relevant. She, instead, focuses on working the shampoo into his hair and hopes silently that there will be some left over for her own personal use following this exercise in patience.

“Matty used to do this,” Bullseye says, voice slurred and the pathetic tone of his is only amplified by the fact that he is holding his knees tight to his chest with a desperate intensity.

“Well I suppose someone must have had to, as you seem to either be incapable of or unwilling to do this yourself.”

“It’s just  _ hard, _ ” he whines, “And it takes awful long and sometimes I start gettin’ dizzy if it takes too long and the water’s too hot.”

Were she a softer person, she would pity him for how sickly he is and how utterly unaware he is of his condition. Instead, she starts to rinse the suds out of his hair and ignores the way he tries to pull away each time she pours more water over him.

He is slight in a way that implies he was starved once and his body has not yet forgotten as much. It pains her at how pathetic he presently looks; he is drenched in water with his face round and wan and his skinny wrists wrapped tight around his knees. 

She cannot stomach it to watch him as she works the conditioner into his hair. It is only when he continues to shiver under her touch, so steadily and so rapidly that she cannot ignore it, that she realizes he is, presumably, crying.

She will not ask him what is wrong. She does not have the patience to deal with any explanation he would provide as it would be so winding and agonizingly meandering that it would scarcely be an explanation at all. She is also loathe to devote any time to comforting Bullseye; she has never been inclined towards sympathy.

Instead, she draws her fingers through his hair. Each stroke is long and delicate as she works apart the knotted portions. She has never been too fond of music outside of how far it can get her with self proclaimed audiophiles, she finds herself humming.

She catches herself on a thought, one far too sharp to disentangle from, and it slices deeply but she has already succumbed to her emotions once thus far and she will  _ not  _ cry again.

However, she turns it around and around in her mind, trying to find the best way to extricate herself from it. 

It shines so brightly that it aches, whispering in her ear. 

_ Were the world kinder, this would be a memory. Were the world kinder, you would know this song and dance by heart with the only change being the roles cast. Were the world kinder, your mother would have washed your hair while you cried. _

She does not stop combing her fingers through his hair until he has ceased crying. The water is cold when he is finally quiet and he does not complain, nor does he pull away when she rinses the conditioner out.

Elektra supposes he has cried himself out. She does not care to ruminate on the strange, silent way he went about it but it is markedly different from the usual loudness of his mannerisms.

Once she is satisfied with the process of rinsing out his hair, she pulls out the plug before getting to her feet, “It is finished.”

Bullseye does not move even to acknowledge her voice and she smiles to herself as she muses, briefly, that perhaps he has managed to fall asleep while she was washing his hair. It is not a thought that survives long, as he starts to stand soon after it crosses her mind.

He does so tentatively. The water slicks his hair to his skin as he rises with a quiet uncertainty, as if his legs may give out. It looks thinner now than it does while it is dry and it snakes around his arms, plastered to his thighs and belly. His eyes are ringed in red and he looks miserable, as if he has been drowned.

She had told herself that she would not do this, but somehow, her traitorous limbs pluck the towel from its rack and she finds herself drying Bullseye’s hair. He will either be able to manage the rest without her help or he will go to sleep still soaked to the bone.

When she is finished, his hair is drier than before and he takes the towel from her in order to wrap it around himself, wearing it as though it were a cloak, an achingly childish gesture. She will still have to brush his hair tomorrow; it will not be dry enough to accomplish  _ that  _ Sisyphean task tonight. The most she will have to accomplish is combing his hair enough to braid it.

Instead, she herds him out to the lone bed yet again as soon as he is dressed within reason. The television is still running, playing another program she is unfamiliar with. She sits cross-legged on the mattress, gesturing for Bullseye to sit in front of her.

He follows her orders most dutifully, taking his place in front of her with his legs dangling off the edge of the bed. For one so talkative, it is… strange how often he acts without questioning when ordered. It is as if he  _ wants  _ to be told what to do. It is one of the few traits present in him that implies he is truly Matthew’s brother.

She works her fingers through his hair yet again, resting damp and limp against the loose fitting shirt he wears, and pays no mind to the soft complaints hanging on his lips. 

“Quiet now,” she speaks and does so softly, “If I braid your hair now, it will make brushing it tomorrow far easier.”

She brought a comb with her in addition to a brush, as if taking great care to groom herself could perhaps counteract the newfound unfamiliarity with herself. Neither object is  _ hers  _ and she catches on yet another memory; an ornate little vanity set, rimmed in gold and embellished with embroidered flowers, gifted to her by her father on one of her breaks between semesters.

The vanity set is long lost now; perhaps her possessions would still be in her apartment, but she doubts it. She has not returned in a very long time and it would have been unsafe to do so. Her place of residence was already known by Matthew and, most likely, others from Home.

She has always had money and she has always had gifts and she prefers the physical over the metaphysical, as if she can quantify how much she is cared for by amassing a collection of trinkets bestowed upon her. Now, however, she has very little money to fund their attempts to find Matthew.

She has never been wanting for funds and finds she is most unfamiliar with this situation. Perhaps, she muses, she could sell the blades to keep them moving.

The truth of the matter is that money is, at present, unimportant. If she does not continue putting one foot in front of the other, she will become possessed by the uncertainty. Instead, she starts combing Bullseye’s wet hair in the form of long, smooth strokes. He does not complain at all, though she can sense his hesitance.

Once it is combed straight, she begins to partition it for braiding. It will be most effective to divide his hair for two twin plaits. Elektra starts at the top of his head on one side and, perhaps, she is gentle as she does so. It is easy, as easy as breathing, and she does not have to  _ think  _ about how she does his hair.

In some ways, she resents this, yes, but it is a hell of her own making.

“I don’t  _ like  _ this.” 

Bullseye whispers the phrase, as if someone might be listening; she is thankful that he does not sound as if he is whining.

“We  _ must  _ braid your hair,” Elektra states, as though she were speaking to a child, “Otherwise all of the time devoted to ensuring it is clean will be for naught.”

“Not the  _ hair,  _ ‘Lektra,” his voice strains, perhaps threatening to break, and she chides herself for assuming that Bullseye would be incapable of layering intent within his words.

She must not underestimate him. That is  _ exactly  _ how she ended up in this present situation and she doubts that the brother is all that different from her golden-tongued  _ archangel. _ He is  _ simple,  _ yes, but that does not have any bearing on his intentions.

She plies for information, “What, exactly, do you dislike, Bullseye?”

“It’s,” he gestures grandly, as though addressing a crowd, and threatens to pull his hair from between Elektra’s fingers in the process, “It’s everythin’. We’re… awful far away from Home now, I reckon and I haven’t been  _ away  _ without Matty for a real long time and I just feel  _ awful  _ sick and  _ awful  _ scared right about now, and it feels-- it just feels  _ wrong _ , ‘Lektra!”

She bristles at the nickname, but it isn’t enough to deter her from dissecting the contents of his words. When she thinks about it in depth, she is forced to admit that she does not exactly know the details of the situation regarding the brothers. 

They live in the family house, a looming testament to the past located at the center of the compound; they are always together, and any tension between the two does not suggest anything other than a byproduct of being raised together; they are in the care of the patriarch of the commune, though neither of them appear to call him ‘father’. That is the extent of her knowledge.

“When is the last time that you left Home?” Elektra asks evenly, so as not to startle the flighty creature in front of her.

“Well, Matty an’ I went on Missions together a lot, but that all but stopped once he started goin’ out to Recrui-- _ ow _ , ‘Lektra, you’re pullin’ my  _ hair!” _

She loosens her grip; she cannot allow herself to be overcome by emotions. She had not even noticed what she was doing until it was far too late, too consumed by the knowledge that she was  _ one  _ such “ _ recruit”.  _

“I suggest you stop moving, then,” she says, although she does not believe he has moved all that much since sitting in front of her.

But he nods, which only serves to further her point as he pulls at his own hair in the process. Elektra finishes the first braid quickly after that and moves on to the other side. 

She has almost partitioned his hair when he stretches out and yawns, “How much  _ longer  _ is this gonna take, ‘Lektra? I wanna go back to  _ sleep _ .”

“Are you this impatient for  _ Matthew?”  _ She quirks up an eyebrow for her own benefit, continuing to work her hands through Bullseye’s hair.

“Matty’s faster than you,” he whines, “And scarier.”

“Sit still and I will be able to finish this with ease.”

“I’m not even movin’ around much, ‘Lektra, I  _ promise _ , you just keep on pullin’ on my hair,” he sounds pained; the childish note in his voice makes him sound far smaller than he is, “I’m tryin’ to be  _ good  _ for you, I promise, I promise, I promise--”

Perhaps, if he was as young as he sounds, she would comfort him. It would be expected of her were he fourteen instead of twenty four. She runs her hands through his hair until he calms down enough for her to continue; it is easier for her to talk to him if she is occupied by some task.

“You have been good, thus far. You have been very well behaved.”

She supposes he must be grinning like a madman. He seems to be inclined to seek out praise as much as he seeks out attention and she has none of Matthew’s patience for that side of him.

Still, she must not resent him for his inability to integrate with the world. The mere fact that she joined the American cultural climate with ease after coming from her homeland is merely a testament to how much stronger she is.

She holds that thought in her mind as she finishes braiding his hair, allowing for a small smile to dance across her lips. Though she is unprepared and uncertain, perhaps even outright afraid, she is still stronger than the pathetic little creature in front of her.

After the final plait is complete, she ties it off with one of her own hair-ties and checks to ensure that the twin braids are at least somewhat even. Once she has removed her hands from his vicinity, Bullseye twists around until facing her, as though he wants to speak to her. She braces herself for yet another drawn out, circular conversation, but it does not prepare her enough for the truth of the matter.

No, far more shockingly, he decides that he is as stupid as she presumes him to be and embraces her, allowing his forehead to rest against the hollow between her shoulder and her neck. He is shaking, yet again, and she assumes it must be exhausting to maintain such a state of agitation.

Against all odds, she finds herself returning the embrace. Elektra carefully smoothes her hands over his back, slight and bony as he is, as if he might break were she to press too hard against him.

“We’re gonna find him, right?” Bullseye’s words catch in his throat; perhaps this will finally be the point at which he cries.

Once she is certain he will not see, she allows herself to frown, “I do not  _ know _ , Bullseye.”

Admitting it aloud is foolish and the gaping maw of uncertainty threatens to swallow her as soon as she invokes the silken thread of doubt. She is tempting fate, pulling on the string although knowing the risks.

This also presents another complication of bringing Bullseye with her on her flight; her intent has always been to ensure that Matthew feels at least a fraction of the anguish of which he has borne unto her. However, she doubts that Matthew’s miserable brother will stand for her doing as such.

She must admit, though she is loathe to do as such, that she feels some fondness for him, otherwise she would not be allowing him to do this. He is snivelling, but holding his composure quite well, all things considered.

Elektra allows herself to recline back against the bed, pulling Bullseye along with her until they are lying flat with him resting against her. Matthew was rarely inclined towards gestures of intimacy such as this, save for a scant few times, though he appears to be a snake in the skin of a man. 

Bullseye is…  _ different.  _ He is not a lover, barely even an equal at that, and yet she does not seem to mind that he is lying almost entirely on top of her, wrapped tightly in her arms.

Though the weight of him against her borders on comforting, assuring her that she is not alone in the world, drifting through an endless sea, the knot of dread resting in her gut assures her that this is only the start. She is simply wasting time trying to run from the weight of the world, wrought down upon her shoulders.

“Sleep,” she strokes her fingers along his back, wishing in a painful, childish way that she was the one being reassured in this manner, “Sleep now and your thoughts will be clearer tomorrow.”

She doubts that  _ she  _ will be able to sleep tonight, or that any sleep would be able to uncloud her head after how long she has spent with it submerged.


	2. bullseye

**MARCH, 1969**

It takes a good while, but eventually Bullseye manages to choke down some of the food. It’s not _ great _ , and it all feels awful clogged with grease even though logically he knows it’s just _ lettuce _ and _ dressing _ and whatnot, and maybe for once, he understands why Matty always seemed to be such a snob when it came to food.

Matty used to curl his lip up, like the snarl of a hound dog, whenever he was presented with food that he deemed unworthy; it’d been real funny, once or twice, watching him at Family dinners try not to make that face at whatever Mr. Fisk had had his cooks prepare for them that week.

And it just gets him thinking about Family Dinners, and how they weren’t the best of times, and he’d get bored and squirm and Mr. Fisk never much liked that and Mr. Wesley would always tug and pull at his hair beforehand, trying to get the tangled knots to behave and look presentable for Dinner. Until Matty started helping with his hair some, but even then, it was always such a _ hassle _ for Matty to deal with, just for him to get it tangled up again the second he went outside the next day and--

Elektra brings him to the present. Her voice is jagged and cuts like glass through the hotel room, and it reminds Bullseye that they’re not at Home, that his hair won’t be managed by Matty, that Matty is _ gone _ , that they’re on a Mission from God to _ save _him. 

“Have you made your decision?”

Maybe that’s why he was thinking about his hair. ‘Cause she wants it clean and brushed, and he just knows that if he doesn’t, there’s gonna be all sorts of rude names sitting on the edge of her tongue like the dewy bead of a raindrop on a spring leaf just begging to overflow and drop like poison.

“Guess you’re right,” He says after a while, and he finally lets the fork he was holding rest against the lip of the takeout container. “Guess I don’t wanna do it tomorrow.” 

She doesn’t smile so much as look vindicated, saying, “Come, then,” as she stands and makes her way across the hotel room. Each one of her steps has got a purpose to it; she has, and will continue to remind Bullseye of Matty, in the way that they look like dancers. 

He hasn’t seen many dancers in his lifetime, but sometimes members of the Flock would dance, and there’s been a couple who said they used to do _ ballet _, and they’d even showed him what that looks like and gave him stories about ballets and fancy music and fancy suits, and it sure did sound like something Matty might like to do, considering he looked like a crane when he moved.

Nothin’ birdlike about Elektra, though. She moves like a mountain lion.

Bullseye untangles himself from his perch on the bed, and follows her as she leads him to the bathroom. He doesn’t really like the lights here; they’re kinda sharp and fluttery and not as nice as the buttery, warm light of Home. But he’ll have to get used to it, if Elektra’s to be believed; they might be on this Mission for long, long while. 

He hovers by the doorway, watching as she draws the bath, spreading his fingers through one another as his mind cycles through prayers and words and thoughts and feelings that will keep him from feeling like he’s gonna jump out of his skin.

The tile of the floor is cold underneath his feet in a way Home never is; the worn cherry wood hard floors there never feel so icy, so sticky, so _ wrong _. It leaves him staring at the grooves in the tile, not wanting to scare Elektra by staring at her as she does this. 

In each tile, he remembers something: 

The first, bathing himself in the creek out back, alone and wandering and covered in mud in the sharp June heat. Matty has just come Home for the first time and still won’t speak to him; for once, Bullseye has someone to speak to, to be around, and he’s still ignored. It feels awful familiar, and it prickles something nasty and fierce at the back of his mind, and so he spends a lot of that summer out back, hiding away, losing himself to the forest and the trees and the creek, caking his skin in mud.

In another, the memory is as gray and frigid as the bathwater he sits in, the porcelain of the tub stained and gritty and dirty and the radio from the other room screaming on and on and on about something or another, punctuated only by snoring, snoring that Bullseye does his best to drown out (breath alcohol-bitter, shouting, skin close, close, so close and _ hurting _), pouring icy, smelly water over his head as he tries to get himself clean. Well water, smelling of sulphur. Even humming can’t drown nothin’ out, ‘cause his voice is scratchy, and scratchy and raw and full of tears and--

The next, he’s at Home and Mr. Wesley has told him how to bathe, and the water is warm, and the lighting is comfortable, and the bathroom smells of herbal soaps and shampoos and he hates baths, always will, makes him dizzy and weak and will just be necessary to repeat in a week anyways, but this one’s better, if only because it means he’s going to see Mr. Fisk soon, and even though Matty had snarled at him from the hallway earlier that cleaning himself up for _ daddy _ won’t make him less of a filthy creature, it’s hard to let his good mood get ruined, even if that word makes him want to gnash his teeth.

And there’s another, and maybe another, and another, layers and layers that he doesn’t know exist, but Elektra is looking at him again, staring at him like he’s some stupid thing, and his gaze rises from the floor to look at her for a bit, a mite uncomfortable, until she says, “Is there something you wish to say?” 

His eyes dart back to the floor, because there’s nothing he can say, and he doesn’t wanna talk to her all about his memories, ‘cause Elektra doesn’t seem to like memories at all, and so he says nothing, and lets them fade away to nothingness, and tries to focus on the tile here, the bath now, Elektra staring at him from under her hair.

“Then I suggest you stop merely standing around.” 

He nods, and his fingers feel itchy, so he busies them with plucking at the fabric of his clothes, pulling them off garment by garment until his skin breaks out in goosebumps in the bathroom air, naked save for the way his hair cascades and covers him, protects him, keeps him hidden. 

Elektra watches him for a moment before she gestures roughly to the bathtub, her pointing finger a harkening, visionary image, like one of the paintings in the House at Home. She reminds Bullseye of fairy tales, the kind that Matty liked him to read out loud to him, the ones with knights and fairy courts and the women who lurk beneath the waves of lakes, a sword in hand, ready for the taking. 

Only Elektra seems to be the type to emerge from the lake and take the sword herself.

He lifts a leg to dip his toe into the water first, testing how hot it’ll be. It’s not achingly hot, but it’s not freezing, either; his skin doesn’t like either of the extremes, so this is alright. He lowers himself slowly into the water, pulling his knees up to his chest and and gathering his hair tight enough that he can throw it over his shoulders. 

The heat clogs his nostrils and eyes and his head feels like he’s at a Party. 

Elektra kneels in front of the lip of the bathtub, but her movements are peripheral in his vision, barely a note in his conscience as he pulls his knees up to his chin and wraps his arms around his legs, trying not to think of the bathroom tiles again. She must pour water on him, but he’s not expecting it, and his body shivers, shivers at the sensation of warm water rushing down his back and cascading his hair like long strands of sun-grown algae across his back.

Pour after pour until he’s wet to the bone, wetter than he must’ve ever been in his whole life, and she’s never bathed him so he doesn’t know how to tell her that he’s wet enough without making her _ mad _. It’s loads of horrible until she begins to lather shampoo into his hair, her long nails scritching against his scalp pleasantly. Bullseye can feel a smile pulling at his lips, and after a moment, he mumbles, the heat and the comfort slurring his speech, “Matty used t’do this.”

“Well I suppose someone must have had to, as you seem to either be incapable of or unwilling to do this yourself.”

The smile slips from his face and he presses his mouth against his forearm, focusing on the sensation of skin touching skin for a moment before he pulls back and whines, “It’s just _ hard _. And it takes awful long and sometimes I start gettin’ dizzy if it takes too long and the water’s too hot.”

Already, the heat is getting to him, enveloping his brain in clouds that make it hard to cut through, hard to remember where he is, who he’s with, what he’s doing. It makes him shiver, over and over again, his limbs jittering and pulling on one another and soon enough, it feels like he’s about to jump right out of his skin. 

The tiles speak to him, taunt him, remind him of memories he’d love to replace, replace, replace.

Elektra maneuvers him and he doesn’t bother trying to fight it, letting her move him as necessary to get the bath over with. He hardly feels it after a while, instead focusing on the heat in his face, the stinging of his eyes that he knows isn’t from the tap water, but rather his own eyes, leaking steadily into the water as he shakes, and shakes, and shakes.

The faucet drips every now and again, and he all but flinches whenever it does. It reminds him of another sink faucet, broken and leaky and costing them money, so much money, money that builds up that _ dad _ spends willy nilly without a thought in the world for _ food _ and--

Elektra’s fingers run slowly through his hair, long thin strands getting caught under her nails, but not in an unpleasant way. Matty never did this; he’s not certain that Matty ever knew how to care for long hair, since the longest he let it grow was to his shoulders before he took his katana and cut, cut, cut, or Wesley took him in and had a barber take it to an appropriate length. 

Thinking of Matt makes him want to sob, not the silent kind, but the kind that folds itself into his chest and releases with audible distress, but it’s better to think of him than the other things, the half-memories that swirl around his mind like inky sins that have yet to be released into the ether.

As though through a veil, she hums an unknown tune, and the water drips with his tears in time with the faucet, and his eyes are open, but he’s not seeing nothin’, nothin’ at all but a blurry impression of the world that does him no good. Sometimes, the world fades from the present and his head creates the memories of times long past and time yet to come and makes them now, and it’s all he can do to sit there and shake and let Elektra touch him and smooth her fingers through her hair and not get up and freak out and do the kind of naughty things that’d get Matty thrown in the Shed or him locked in the Big House. 

The water turns frigid, and he finds himself shaking more. The skin under his eyes ache from the tears, and itch once it dries; he only realizes he’s not crying anymore when Elektra reaches forward and pulls the plug out, and the drain begins to slurp and empty the contents of the tub. 

He feels bare to the world. 

“It is finished,” She says, and slowly she stands up, her form hovering over him and her hand brushing against the shower curtain.

He’s never noticed how tall she is, but now, towering above him, he feels frozen, his limbs trying to stop shaking, trying to stop moving, trying to not be so _ visible _. Bullseye’s heart jumps in his chest, and it’s only once it calms down, that he’s certain he can breathe normally, that he tries to stand, avoiding eye contact with her.

Hair clings to him. There’s a small pond back behind the grounds back Home, a little further than the stream that runs through it, where he and Matty had played a few times a summer. In the thick of the July heat, one summer, when the dragonflies soared through the cattails and the cicadas screamed from the trees, Bullseye had waded through the shallows of the pond while Matty leaned against the rotting pillar of an ancient dock, smoking a cigarette.

He had said, “There are cicadas in Japan. It always sounded the same in summer as it does here.”

Bullseye had turned to him, and the heat-nurtured algae clung to his body in wet, slimy strands, and as it dried to his arms, it grew hot, and he was forced to scrub it from his body. He had said, “Sometimes there’s so many of them and they have bright red eyes and they’ll climb all over you. Only one summer, though.” 

Matty had hummed and stubbed his cigarette against the wood and said, “I suppose even the devil comes up through the dirt, occasionally.” He flicked his cigarette butt at Bullseye and, in retaliation, Bullseye had thrown fresh, wet algae at him.

His hair coils around his arms as he climbs out of the bathtub.

He watches rivulets of water run down his flesh, and then feels a towel moving his head roughly, as Elektra dries his hair to the best of her abilities. Bullseye doesn’t have the voice to tell her it will just knot his hair again.

The towel is warm, and he pulls it from her, wrapping it around himself to shiver into the cloth. He hugs it close, dipping his chin into it, and his jaw clacks together a few times when his bare feet step onto the cool tile and off the bathroom rug.

By the time he finds his bag and manages to pull on a pair of slacks, Elektra all but pulls him to the bed, climbing on it and gesturing for him to follow her. He follows where she wants him and she runs her fingers through his hair once more, fingers running harshly through tangled strands. 

“Quiet now, if I braid your hair now, it will make brushing it tomorrow far easier.” She says, and her voice behind him makes him shiver, his shoulders hunching in for a moment.

He tries to be good, he really really really does, but it’s hard and it’s not a simple task, and as she brings a comb to his hair, over and over and over again he has to stop himself from flinching or moving too much or getting distracted. He feels tense. 

She separates his hair, and all he can think about is Matty, and the Mission, and Home and how everything feels wrong and kind of hopeless and terrifying and how he’s never really been away for a long time, and Elektra won’t tell him how _ long _ this will take, and how Matty isn’t even probably in New York anymore, and Bullseye hasn’t even been outside of New York since Mr. Fisk took him in and kept him fed and clothed and safe and how the place he was _ in _ wasn’t as safe as New York, not in a long-shot, and--

“I don’t _ like _ this.” It bursts from his lungs like the bubbles of an upturned stone in a creek, and he tries not to get lost in thinking about the creek at Home, the lake at Home, the Matty who should _ be _ Home.

Elektra’s voice is cold and collected. “We _ must _ braid your hair. Otherwise all the time devoted to ensuring it is clean will be for naught.” 

And she just doesn’t _ get _ it, doesn’t seem to care, doesn’t seem to really understand or see how the world’s been turned topsy turvy and _ awful _ , and he squeezes out, “Not the _ hair _ , ‘Lektra,” because she needs to know that he’s not a kid, he’s not complaining about his _ hair _ being done.

“What, exactly, do you dislike, Bullseye?” 

He doesn’t know how to explain it, is the problem, and he wishes she would just _ get _ it. Matty would just get it. Whichever Matty would get it, and would figure it out, and put it into words _ for _ him, or else he wouldn’t use his words at all and would just know what Bullseye means and _ fix _ it like any good brother should. So he kind of flaps his hands aimlessly in front of him, trying to grab the words from thin air, and manages “It’s-- It’s everythin.’ We’re… awful far away from Home now, I reckon, and I haven’t even been _ away _ without Matty for a long time, an’ I just feel _ awful _ sick and _ awful _ scared right about now, and it feels-- it just feels _ wrong _, ‘Lektra!”

Elektra is quiet for a moment, and strands of his hair loop and loop and loop with her practiced hands. Matty was good at pulling his hair from his face, braiding it, but Elektra does it so _ easily _, with a grace that not even Matty could accomplish. 

“When is the last time that you left Home?” 

Bullseye sucks in a breath and thinks, and the thinking helps to focus his words so it’s not just everything bouncing around loose and carefree in his brain. “Well… Matty an’ I went on Missions together a lot, but that all stopped once started goin’ out to Recrui--” His scalp is on fire, it burns, his hair pulled taut and tight and his head almost buckles back in her grip. “_ Ow _ , ‘Lektra, you’re pullin’ my _ hair _!” 

The pressure slowly loosens, and Bullseye can hear her take a breath deeper than the rest. Her words are stiff. “I suggest you stop moving, then,” but it’s not even fair, because he’s sat so still for her other than when she _ yanked _ his head back. He wants to argue, but he doesn’t want his hair to be pulled again, so he just nods and tries not to wince when his scalp gets tugged on again.

He tries to focus on the hair. Everything else makes him want to scream, or bash something, or throw something, or cry, and so he focuses on his hair, and the repetitive movement of strands being pulled over, under, pulled taut, repeated, slowly calms him, and he surprises himself when he yawns and tries to stretch to stay awake, his eyes grown heavy. “How much _ longer _ is this gonna take? I wanna go to _ sleep _.” 

“Are you this impatient for _ Matthew _?” Elektra asks, and sometimes Bullseye hates how her tone is so mean without saying anything mean at all, really. 

“Matty’s faster than you,” He says, and says quieter, “An’ scarier.” 

Elektra’s tugs slightly too hard and says, “Sit still, and I will be able to finish this with ease.”

Bullseye huffs, and digs his hands into the comforter of the bed, bunching up the cloth. “I’m not even movin’ _ around _ much, ‘Lektra, I _ promise _ , you just keep on pullin’ on my hair! I’m tryin’ to be _ good _ for you, I promise, I promise, I promise--” He forces himself to cut off the sentence, wanting to say it again, and again, and again.

“You have been good, thus far. You have been very well behaved.” And she doesn’t even say it real softly, or nicely, but she smooths her hands down his hair as she says it, and it makes him almost lean forward (before he remembers and stops himself), and lets himself smile instead. He _ is _ being good, even if Elektra’s not good at tellin’ him. And he even sits still for the rest of the braiding, waiting until it’s tied off to move. 

He twists around, pulling his leg up onto the bed with him, watching her stare at him for a moment before he lets himself give in a hug her, pulling himself tight against her. Normally, she smells good, flowery and light, and she doesn’t right now, not after the day they’ve had, but it doesn’t matter, because at the end of the day, she’s here with him, and he’d be alone without her, and she’s helping him find _ Matty _ so they can go home, and he just wants to touch someone, anyone, and have them tell him things will turn out _ okay _ . She pulls her arms around him tentatively, in the same way that Matty sometimes hesitates (not always, not always, not anymore, before he left it became a different thing, different Moods) and Bullseye realizes he’s shaking a little again, because the quiet that came with braiding has faded into thinking about _ everything _ again.

“We’ll find him, right?” His voice chokes out, like there’s minnows stuck there, and his words are muffled against her shoulder. 

“...I do not _ know _, Bullseye,” Is her response, and he wants to scream at the honesty. But he doesn’t. Because that wouldn’t be good. 

He shakes against her until she slowly starts to pull back, laying the both of them back. Her hair splays out all over the bed, and he supposes it’s a good thing his won’t, now, so their hair doesn’t get tangled together. Bullseye doesn’t worry too much about his weight on her, because she’s taller, and probably stronger, and Matty always told him he was too scrawny for his own good, anyways.

Laying on her like this, he can almost ignore the terror that strikes him when he thinks about how Elektra doesn’t _ know _where Matty is, how long this is going to take. His eyes grow heavy after a while, and when she tells him, “Sleep,” her fingers trailing along his back as though writing secret runes into the sensitive skin of his spine, he almost can’t help but obey and close his eyes, and turn off his mind. His limbs are weary and exhausted, the occasional shake still wracking his body as he calms down, relaxes, let’s go of the horror of the day.

**Author's Note:**

> we're back after a short break! come stop by on tumblr and say hi to us! (bullseyemutual & sekwoja)


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